


monsters

by federaldust



Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, tea discourse, there's some kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/federaldust/pseuds/federaldust
Summary: after Jack is released from Station House One, Llewelyn takes him someplace safe to clean him up.
Relationships: Jack Walker/Llewellyn Watts
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	monsters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atomictourist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomictourist/gifts).



> many have written the epilogue scene that Jack and Llewelyn deserved at the end of 13x18. this is just my attempt at it. I feel like the need for this scene really brings us together as queers. It lives rent free in our heads, it has no money troubles.

Llewelyn dabbed ointment on a scrape along the edge of Jack's jaw. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know it hurts."

Jack had winced a little earlier as Llewelyn had put two deft stitches in a cut on his temple, but had been otherwise quiet. Detective Watts had learned how to clean a wound properly at the age of about six; his sister had taught him when he had bloodied his knees on a gravel path. He had first given stitches to someone he knew at age fifteen, under guidance from an older boy in the neighborhood whose father was a veterinarian. He could do small cuts no problem. He was glad that the worst cuts on Jack's face didn't seem beyond his limited abilities. He didn't trust the hospitals, or even Dr. Ogden, with Jack right now.

But everything was clean, fixable. Jack didn't even seem that bothered by it. It was as if he'd been in this situation before.

This troubled Llewelyn, because he himself was bothered. While he had been able to keep his hands steady while dressing Jack's wounds, as soon as his fingers idled he found himself trembling.

They were safe for the moment in Jack's butcher shop. Llewelyn had locked both the front door to the street and the back office door behind them. While there was a larger lantern in the office, Watts hadn't wanted too much light to be visible through the back window to the alley, to neighboring apartments. He had drawn the shade and managed to work by the light of two small candles.

Llewelyn had also lit the pot-bellied stove in the back office and put on a large kettle of water. He'd cleaned up with the water and some scraps of cloth, and Jack's face had re-emerged from underneath the dried blood. The swelling had even gone down some thanks to a piece of frozen beef from the icebox, wrapped in wax paper. Now Watts was making tea. As he poured the water into Jack's little blue enamel teapot, he could see his own hands vibrating in the candlelight.

"You're shaking," Jack said as Llewelyn put the kettle back down.

"I am so sorry, Jack," Llewelyn answered softly.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Jack said calmly. Llewelyn met his gaze, and saw that the look in his eyes was steady, welcoming, appreciative. He resisted his instinct to look away, and held still.

"I truly feel," Llewelyn began, and breathed in sharply, "like I'm going insane. It frightens me that this world, which I already know to be cruel, can conjure new cruelties that seem so specifically targeted towards the kindest, most vibrant, and most loving people I know." He paused. "Nothing in my past experience, though, provides me with convincing evidence to the contrary. Everyone I've ever loved has suffered terribly through no fault of their own. And yet it continues to jar me--" He finally glanced away from Jack's beaten face, to the candle, to the ceiling, back to Jack's forehead and to the fresh blooming bruises on his cheeks. "To alarm me like it might a child. What does that mean, do you think?" Jack's mouth opened as if to speak, but Llewelyn went on. "What does it mean that this hurts so much?"

Jack reached out and took one of Llewelyn's hands between his own. "It means that you have a heart. And that you feel the way we all feel--like monsters or abominations to God... who are secretly just human."

Llewelyn felt his face burning with tears, but he didn't look away. Jack wiped the tears from his cheeks with calloused fingertips. Though his lip was still freshly cut, he softly kissed under each of Llewelyn's eyes. Llewelyn closed them and took a deep breath. As he sighed, he felt Jack's hands in their familiar position at his hips, then his arms wrapped around him tightly as Jack rested his head on his shoulder.

They swayed there for a minute or so. Llewelyn's mind wandered to the playful gestures Jack made to him in public--the tie-straightening, the way his fingers would brush against his own when handing him a beer or a sandwich or a coin.

He tried to reconcile this private knowing between them with the world he knew and could not. How could something so direct and so pure as the affection between them exist in the same world he lived in on the other side of that door? And how could it be so reviled and feared?

"I don't care if I lose my job, but neither of us deserves to be in prison," Llewelyn said finally. "I will do anything to keep you safe." He hugged Jack closer to him, and kissed the back of his neck, just glancing his lips there, while looking into the candlelight.

Jack disentangled himself from their embrace and came to face Watts again. "I love you, Llewelyn," he said. "If we are to keep seeing one another, it isn't going to be safe."

"That's true, isn't it?" Watts mused. "We could still be taken to jail, or killed, even if we... built a cabin in the mountains and lived far, far away from polite society. Someone would find us out, and hate us for it."

Jack laughed, his smile newly crooked thanks to his swollen jaw. "I have no intention of leaving Toronto, or my business, or our friends," he said. 

The way he said "our friends" made Watts feel a lump in his throat. "Me neither," he answered. "So I guess we will have to be abominations to God together here."

"Or just men," Jack said. He kissed Llewelyn then, and Watts felt himself softening, the tension leaving his limbs as he kissed back. Llewelyn let himself enjoy the touch of Jack's hands at his waist, and the tantalizing addition of Jack's tongue into his mouth, but was soon preoccupied with quite another matter. He pulled away.

"You'll want me to pour the tea now, before it gets oversteeped," Watts said. "You're only supposed to steep black tea for a few minutes. The tannins..."

"I know how to make tea, Llewelyn," Jack said, laughing, and kissed him again.

"I do, too," Llewelyn said, practically in a whisper as their lips parted. "Love you, that is." He surprised himself by saying it so plainly.

Jack squeezed his hand. "There are teacups on the shelf by my desk."

A few minutes later, they had two perfectly steeped cups of tea, and a few minutes after that they made the brisk walk back to Jack's boardinghouse. In between the street lamps, Llewelyn held Jack's hand, and thought to himself privately about the irony that in the dark they could be men, and in the light, they had to pretend to be monsters.


End file.
